Category: Scripture

The Bible says that when Christ died, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (see Lk 23:45). This curtain referred to in the Gospels enclosed the Holy…

The Bible says that when Christ died, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (see Lk 23:45). This curtain referred to in the Gospels enclosed the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the Temple. The original Temple was constructed in the reign of Solomon in the 10th century B.C. The Holy of Holies housed the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments had been inscribed by God, and the Ark remained in the Temple for approximately 400 years. When that temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the Ark of the Covenant was lost. Seventy or so years later the Temple was rebuilt. From that time on, however, the Holy of Holies was a bare room. The Jews must have repaired the curtain after it was torn at the crucifixion of Our Lord. Until the Romans finally destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D., the high priest — and he alone — continued to enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on the solemn Day of Atonement. There he offered intercession for the people of Israel.

When God reveals himself to Abraham, he lavishes the promise of many gifts upon him. In return, Abraham is invited to worship God. God does not impose himself, nor does…

When God reveals himself to Abraham, he lavishes the promise of many gifts upon him. In return, Abraham is invited to worship God. God does not impose himself, nor does he have any need to enter into this covenant for any reason other than love. And so, God lavishes his love upon Abraham and in return seeks his faithfulness in true freedom.

From the outset, however, it could be considered that Abraham’s intentions might not be the most sterling. Obviously, he only needed to say he worshipped God and would receive God’s abundance in return. It seems like an easy, and maybe even selfish, deal for him initially. But then God gives Abraham a defining challenge to prove his commitment to the bargain.

The episode where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is not the story of a vengeful, twisted God. Rather, God is asking Abraham to worship him in thanksgiving and sacrifice. Abraham knew that the abundant blessings God bestowed upon him would be fulfilled through his promised son, Isaac. Later in the Bible, the prophet Samuel sums it up succinctly: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to the LORD’s command? Obedience is better than sacrifice, to listen, better than the fat of rams” (1 Sam 15: 22).

In this story, Abraham’s true worship of God is put to the test, and his obedience and trust in God is thoroughly established. Abraham is unhesitant to give God his obedience, even if he might not understand what God is asking of him. Abraham serves as a model of what it means to live obedient lives of sacrifice and thanksgiving in worship of God. Abraham’s story shows that God’s plans often defy human logic and show a divine logic at work. Since God is love alone, we have every reason to trust that what he asks of us is in our best interest. As St. Paul says, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28). Abraham’s story embodies this vision.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

“The Bible,” said Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), “is a stream wherein the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.” As a young evangelical Protestant, I paid no…

“The Bible,” said Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), “is a stream wherein the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.”

As a young evangelical Protestant, I paid no attention to Gregory the Great, but I would have viewed myself as an “elephant” when it came to the Bible. I had read the Bible and memorized verses from the age of three, taken correspondence Bible courses, attended regular Bible studies and earned a degree from a Bible college.

Truth to be told, I was a water skipper, barely touching the surface of sacred Scripture. Yet several verses puzzled me; some even bothered me. Here are five passages that stand out to me, 20 years after I began to seriously consider the claims of the Catholic Church.

• John 6: The entire, lengthy chapter is a brilliantly constructed theological tour de force. The final section (beginning with verse 51) contains a repeated claim, made by Jesus, that began gnawing at me (pun intended!) even while at Bible college: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (v. 53). Whatever could He mean? I consulted numerous Protestant commentaries, and they spoke of symbolic language and metaphors; some seemed more intent on what Jesus didn’t mean than on what He did mean! I was not satisfied, as those explanations made little sense of the obvious shock — and awe — intended. Then I discovered the early second-century Letter to the Smyrnaeans, written by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who denounced those heretics (the Docetists) who denied that “that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

• 1 Timothy 3:15: From an early age I had been taught that the Bible was the foundation of all truth, the final word from God on anything and everything of importance. The “Church,” I believed, was the entirety of all “true believers,” bound together by spiritual, invisible bonds. External bonds and signs of communion were fine, as far as they went — which usually wasn’t far at all. Catholics, it seemed, were always talking about “the Church,” while we were focused on Jesus and the Bible. Yet the apostle Paul, who preached Christ constantly, described the Church as “the household of God” and the “pillar and foundation of truth.” How had I missed that? In truth, I had read it many times, but without much thought at all for the deep implications of Paul’s words.

• Matthew 16:13-20: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (v. 18). Those words have been scrutinized, analyzed and parsed a million times. For me, they made more and more sense as I studied early Church history in detail. I found that not only was the authority of the Petrine office recognized and upheld very early, it was a truly catholic belief. Those who rejected it were usually those who also rejected core teachings about Jesus, salvation and the sacraments. Also, I saw how Jesus’ words fit into his identity as the Son of David, the Messiah-King whose kingdom would include offices and positions of authority, in part because the Church was both an invisible and visible Body.

• 2 Peter 1:3-4: As an evangelical, I usually thought of salvation as an escape from sin and death. The part I missed was the call to “become partakers of the divine nature” (v. 4, RSV). The apostle John wrote: “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (see 1 Jn 3:1-3). In short, the Catholic Church teaches that we can be filled with God’s actual, Trinitarian life. “Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life” (CCC, no. 1997; see also Nos. 460, 1996).

• The fifth verse is the one that doesn’t exist, the never-written Bible verse that lists the 46 Old Testament books and the 27 New Testament books. As Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa likes to say, “The Bible did not come with a Table of Contents.” It is true: “All scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tm 3:16). But what scripture? Who decides what is in and what is out? Through the study of history, I learned the truth of Blessed John Henry Newman’s famous statement: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God? A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced…

What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God?

A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced with a guttural sounding ch) is one of those delightfully untranslatable terms one finds in the Bible. It has the idea of “the giving of a break” but means much more than that. It combines the notions of “kindness,” “faithfulness,” “truth,” “persistent and steadfast loyalty” and, most of all, “love.”

We see it frequently in the context of the “unfailing love” God shows for Israel in the context of the covenant.

Though untranslatable, chesed captures an important dimension of divine mercy: steadfast and true kindness based on the covenant. Chesed is a wonderful word, but one that still fails to capture the fullness of mercy. Its relational dimensions make it too powerful to convey the idea of the seemingly random act of kindness toward someone you don’t really know well or who doesn’t deserve it. For that we need the term rachamim (again with the guttural ch sound). This one has a near English equivalent: “pity” or “compassion” — something akin to the sentiment that causes you to fall for the three-legged puppy who is neither cute nor potty-trained, but whose attraction is precisely that no one else wants him. In some cases rachamim even extends to family members.

Joseph is overcome with it in dealing with his brothers with whom by all rights he should have been angry (see Gn 43:30). God was furious with Israel, too, after the creation of the golden calf. Yet in one of the Bible’s most famous declarations of mercy, God turns away from his anger declaring in his sovereignty, “I who grant mercy [rachamim] to whom I will” (Ex 33:19).

The Greek New Testament unsurprisingly talks a great deal about “mercy,” too — using different language, of course. The most common term is eleeos, made famous in the Kyrie Eleison rite at Mass right before the Gloria where Catholics say, “Lord, have mercy.” Eleeos truly does mean something very close to what English speakers mean by “mercy,” combining the Hebrew ideas of chesed and raham. It is precisely because he is the “Son of David” with all that implies in terms of God’s covenant that Jesus is asked to take pity on blind Bartimaeus (see Mk 10:47-48; Mt 9:27; 20:30-31; Lk 18:38-39).

What the New Testament adds to “mercy” is splankna, another term difficult to capture perfectly in English, which suggests warm feelings from the deepest innards of the human person. The “deepest innards” is often translated “heart,” although splanknonpoints anatomically to the “guts” below the rib cage. Confusion on this point led to the Douay Rheims’ famous translation of Philemon 1:7 as “the bowels of the saints have been refreshed” when the idea is that the innermost being of the people of God was being renewed. When it comes to God, splankna is a “tenderizer” seasoning added to God’s mercy. The famous Canticle of Zechariah’s “tender mercy of our God” (Lk 1:78) combines the terms splankna and eleeos together.

So now with a little philology under our belt, we are now in a position to do a little biblical theology. We know roughly what God’s mercy is, but who gets it and how?

One central idea advanced by Our Lord is the connection of divine mercy for people with people’s mercy for one another.

This is the message of the parable of the debtor (see Mt 18:21-35) as well as the Lord’s Prayer — “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). Our reception of divine mercy is wholly contingent on our ability to show mercy to others. This is not only because of the social dimension of chesed; by making God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness we become a channel of divine mercy, which flows through us to others.

Another crucial aspect to the flow of mercy is based on the humanity of Jesus Christ. His humanity enables him to become our High Priest who is able to identify with our fleshly weaknesses, since he took on frail humanity himself, yet without sin. It is through the humanity of Jesus that we can approach the throne of grace confidently and receive mercy (see Heb 4:14-16).

But let’s not fall into the trap that mercy and forgiveness is an attribute of the New Testament while the God of the Old Testament remains a deity of wrath and judgment. Even a cursory knowledge of the Bible reveals that there are many times when mercy is shown in the Old Testament and many times when divine wrath and judgment are threatened in the New.

Old Testament Prophets

And the Year of Mercy, emphasized the scope of mercy, particularly for those on the margins or the periphery. This is a question actually of great salience for the Old Testament writers in terms of avoiding wrath or receiving mercy, but also in defining the boundaries to which mercy could extend. Does it extend to Israel alone even if Israel is just as culpable as the other nations? Or can the nations receive it, too? And in no place were these very difficult questions more discussed than in the Book of the Twelve, aka the twelve minor prophets from Hosea through Malachi.

The Book of Joel is all about God’s judgment and who can avoid it when it seems that it is in store for everyone. The prophet says in Joel 2:14, “Perhaps he [Yahweh] will again relent and leave a blessing.”

This is key to the biblical idea of mercy — maybe we will get it, but God certainly doesn’t owe it to us. Therefore, we have no right to presume it. On the other hand, if we repent and show our repentance with prayer and fasting, maybe there is hope (see Jl 2:15-18).

In fact, God is merciful (see Jl 2:18-27) and will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh in advance of the judgment (3:1). Paradoxically, “all flesh” do not escape judgment. The nations will be destroyed as God’s people will be exalted (Chapter 4), because they did not call on the name of the Lord (3:5) and accept his mercy. Joel’s view is a somewhat hopeful picture that God’s wrath on the Day of the Lord can be escaped by the few who have the Spirit.

But Amos’ take on judgment is strikingly different. He makes it crystal clear that the various judgments against the nations are fixed; Yahweh, in fact, will not repent (“revoke the punishment” is the translation in the Revised Standard Version; see 1:3,6,9,11,13; 2:1,4,6). The punishments are coming and there is nothing that the nations, or Judah and Israel, can do to avoid them.

And those who have read Joel and actually want the Day of the Lord (see Jl 2:1-2) are in for a rude awakening (Am 5:17). For Amos it will be darkness and not light, with no hope — none at all.

Amos’ message is almost wholly negative. Jonah, however, turns Amos’ message on its head. Due to the reluctant prophet’s preaching, the Gentile king of Nineveh dares to perceive the same prospect of mercy for his people that Joel had for Judah (see Jon 3:9).

And he received it! God did what Amos said he would not do — he “repented” of the judgment he would inflict (see Jon 3:10). The same God, “slow to anger” in his dealings with his covenant people (Ex 34:6), shows himself “slow to anger” with a wicked Gentile nation as well (Jon 4:2).

On the other hand, Nahum rejoiced with sadistic glee that despite its slowness, God’s judgment eventually did fall upon Nineveh after all (see Na 1:3a). But the pendulum swings back again with Habakkuk. Yes, God may punish the Assyrians, but his chosen instrument for doing so is Babylon, and they are about to come down to destroy God’s people in Judah as well (Hb 1:5-6).

Zechariah finds a way for the nations to benefit from God’s coming kingdom after all — the reign which is the main subject of his book (see Zec 14:9). The nations that fight against God will be vanquished, of course (Zec 14:1-4), yet, paradoxically, the portions of the nations who survive the war and become loyal to the true worship of God will experience divine blessing (14:16-21).

On the other side of the Cross, Paul, in Romans 9-11, wonders how it can be that God is showing so much mercy to mostly Gentile Christians while non-Christian Jews seem to have lost the mercy they once possessed. Will God once again withdraw the mercy shown to Gentiles and return it to the Jews? It is hard to say!

Mercy is deeply paradoxical.

Mercy will fall next where we least expect it. God will exalt His people and punish His enemies both in history and at the end of history, but He has enemies both inside and outside the visible boundaries of Israel/Church, and even His people within Israel/Church need purification and have done things worthy of divine chastisement, as have others outside Israel/Church who stand nonetheless to benefit from the purification and be restored to God’s friendship afterward.

Mercy is understandable only against the background of sin and imminent judgment from which no one is exempt. Everyone must repent and show mercy to others, and the greatest hope for mercy is in the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Repentance does not guarantee that one will avoid suffering and chastisement, but it is the constant condition necessary to receive God’s mercy that He stands forever prepared to offer to everyone.

Drawing from exotic speculations based on heretical texts that were written long after the Gospels, many have falsely claimed throughout the ages that Mary Magdalene was a “goddess,” was married…

Drawing from exotic speculations based on heretical texts that were written long after the Gospels, many have falsely claimed throughout the ages that Mary Magdalene was a “goddess,” was married to Jesus, and was intended by Him to be the leader of the Church. But that is not the real Mary Magdalene depicted in the Gospels and celebrated by the Church.

For a true portrait of this famous but misunderstood woman, let’s start with the biblical accounts.

Seeking the Real Mary Magdalene

The four Gospels contain at least a dozen references to Mary from Magdala, a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. She is described as a woman who had suffered from demonic possession and from whom Jesus had expelled seven demons (see Mk 16:9; Lk 8:2).

She is also prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in His ministry (Lk 8:2). She was a witness of the Crucifixion (Mt 27:56; Jn 19:25), of Jesus’ burial (Mt 27:61; Mk 15:47), and of the empty tomb (Mt 28:1-10; Mk 16:1-8; Lk 24:10). After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to her alone at the tomb (Mk 16:9; Jn 20:1-18).

In the Western tradition, Mary Magdalene eventually became identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:37-50 as well as Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (see Lk 10:38-42; Jn 11). However, in the Eastern tradition, the three women were identified separately, with feast days on March 21 (the unnamed sinner), March 18 (Mary of Bethany) and July 22 (Mary Magdalene).

Many feminists and critics claim that the Catholic Church, alarmed by Mary’s supposed position as Jesus’ chief apostle, slandered and “defamed” her by labeling her a prostitute. They say this was due to “the Vatican’s” desire to silence the “truth” about Mary Magdalene, including her marriage to Jesus and her position of authority in the early Church. Such a tale of conspiracy and misogyny is attractive to those questioning the role of women in the Catholic Church and the Church’s teachings about sexual mores. But is it accurate?

The Church, the Pope and the Magdalene

If the early Christians were intent upon destroying the memory of Mary Magdalene, they did a poor job of it. In Christian Scripture and Tradition she is given a prominent role as witness to the Resurrection, a remarkable fact considering that the testimony of women had little value in first-century Jewish society.

Even so, these references aren’t enough for those who are convinced that the Magdalene was deliberately denied her rightful place at the right hand of Jesus as His head apostle. And although she is mentioned more times than some of the apostles, some feminist writers speak of her being “marginalized” by a piece of “propaganda” known as the New Testament, written by “the anti-Magdalene party.”

Feminist critics often portray the early Church Fathers as villains in this matter. The prime suspect in the alleged crime against women is Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). The Pope once said in a homily: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark.”

Why did St. Gregory make this identification?

First, the passage about the “sinful woman” in Luke 7:37-50 immediately precedes the description of “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” in Luke 8:2. He apparently harmonized the two descriptions, perhaps because the woman who anointed Jesus (see Lk 7:38) is described as a “sinner,” and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons — an indication to some that she was that sinner.

A second reason for Pope Gregory’s identification of the two women is the Magdalene’s birthplace. By the sixth century, the biblical city of Magdala had acquired a reputation of depravity and godlessness.

Third, John 11:1-2 identifies the woman who anointed Christ and dried His feet with her hair as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. St. Gregory may have assumed that the two accounts of a woman anointing Our Lord referred to the same event and the same woman.

Probably the most important reason, however, that Pope Gregory identified Magdalene with the “sinful woman” is that his preferred way of interpreting the biblical text was to focus on its moral implications. He believed that the seven demons that had once possessed Mary Magdalene, though literal demons, also represented the seven deadly sins.

At the time of this homily, Rome was undergoing famine and the turmoil of war. So the Pope was taking this opportunity to encourage Christians to repent of their sins.

Vicious Slander or Papal Candor?

St. Gregory’s creation of a single Mary out of three different women is arguably not supported by the text. Most Catholic Scripture scholars agree with the Eastern tradition that the three women are separate individuals. The revised 1969 Roman calendar no longer classifies Mary Magdalene as a penitent, indicating that Rome no longer considers her a reformed harlot. Never-theless, even if St. Gregory’s act was factually flawed, it wasn’t outrageous and it certainly wasn’t malicious. As a pastor and a man of holiness, the great Pope held up Mary Magdalene as an exemplar of repentance, humility and devotion. She was a symbol of hope for sinners.

Though his facts may not have been accurate, he was not attempting to destroy Mary Magdalene, but to praise her. In the meantime, we should note that however great the authority of Pope Gregory, his teaching about Mary Magdalene was not infallible, nor was it issued in an encyclical or a papal bull. It was never defined as Catholic dogma nor upheld as sacred doctrine by an ecumenical council.

Contrary to feminist criticisms and the unfounded assertions to the contrary, Mary Magdalene has been openly celebrated by Catholics for many centuries. Described by some Church Fathers as the “apostle to the apostles,” she was a brave disciple of Jesus who stood at His cross; she was also a witness to the resurrected Christ.

Far from being pilloried or slandered, Mary of Magdala is rightly recognized by the Church as a model of faithfulness, devotion and loyalty to the truth of the Gospel of her Master and Lord.

I’ve long thought that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has never received full (if any) credit for something that shines through in his many splendid writings: a keen, dry sense of…

I’ve long thought that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has never received full (if any) credit for something that shines through in his many splendid writings: a keen, dry sense of humor.

One of my favorite examples is found in his first “Jesus of Nazareth” book (Doubleday, 2007) in the chapter on the temptations of Jesus. Remarking on the second temptation proffered by the devil to Jesus, Pope Benedict notes how the devil “cites Holy Scripture in order to lure Jesus into his trap.” He points out that the “devil proves to be a Bible expert who can quote the Psalm exactly,” and then wryly observes, “The whole conversation of the second temptation takes the form of a dispute between two Bible scholars.” What a great image!

Rather unexpectly, he refers to the short story “The Antichrist” by the Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev, which describes the Antichrist receiving an honorary degree in theology from the University of Tübingen and being “a great Scripture scholar.” Readers familiar with Pope Benedict’s personal history know that in 1966, after serving as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council, then-Father Joseph Ratzinger accepted a position teaching theology at Tübingen — the epicenter of the historical-critical movement of the 19th century. Historical criticism is an approach to studying Scripture with roots in the Protestant Reformation that emerged in full force in the 17th and 18th centuries; it uses various scholarly and scientific tools (source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, etc.) to ascertain the original, or “primitive,” meaning of an ancient text — especially biblical texts. Father Ratzinger, then, was well acquainted with scholars who used historical-critical methods. He also knows how many scholars used these methods to undermine, question and even directly attack Christianity. “The alleged findings of scholarly exegesis,” he wrote, “have been used to put together the most dreadful books that destroy the figure of Jesus and dismantle the faith.”

For example, in 1835, the polemical liberal Protestant writer David Strauss (1808-74), drawing upon the Tübingen school’s work, wrote Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet(“The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined”), the most influential “life of Jesus” of the 19th century. He presented Jesus as a fanatical Jewish preacher with delusions of messianic grandeur and insisted the Gospels were mostly legend and folklore. The influence of his bare-bones story of an itinerate preacher who proclaimed the Kingdom can be seen in the work of the modern-day Jesus Seminar, which has rejected as unhistorical or wildly exaggerated nearly every narrative in the Gospels.

Pope Benedict gets right to the heart of the matter: “The common practice today is to measure the Bible against the so-called modern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God cannot act in history — that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity.”

A perfect poster theologian for this dogmatic subjectivity is the former episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who has authored numerous books explaining that nothing in the Gospels can be taken literally or at face value, and that Protestant and Catholic understandings of God as Triune are “heretical.” For Spong, echoing Strauss, everything is about subjective, mystical experience. Oddly enough, this doesn’t stop him from uttering endless judgments on orthodox Christianity with an authoritative arrogance that would make a pope cringe in shame. Spong insists that orthodox Christianity is, in fact, “fundamentalist.” I don’t know if Pope Benedict has read Spong, but he does state that the Antichrist, “with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism.” This entire dispute over interpreting Scripture, he notes, is really “about who God is.” Scholarship is a good thing, of course, but reason without humble faith in the living God can lead to serious error, or ruin. After all, the devil is a Bible scholar — and “he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).